Monday, April 21, 2008

When you are making your own detergent with borax, baking soda, "natural" (most likely handmade, organic and therefore, expensive) soap and (again, expensive) essential oils, you are not being thrifty. You are showing off. You are saying, "Look at what a good, virtuous mom I am, I even make my own detergent!" If you were really serious about saving money, you'd drive over to the dollar store and buy the biggest box of off-brand you could find because, seriously honey, it's all just soap.

Pinching pennies to these moms seems to be having to drink "just plain old store milk," bagging their own groceries, and eating leftovers. They think stockpiling Froot Loops and Coco Puffs is frugal. (Have they never heard of bulk oatmeal?)

I'm having a difficult time pitying these women. **I am also tired and crabby as hell. And yes, RobertaX, I am totally copying your footnotes. I hope you don't mind.

If you're actually saving fat to make your own soap, and don't use the oils, it could be cost-effective. But to have the fat, you're probably buying cuts of meat that you shouldn't be. This might make sense for a stay-at-home mom, though I wouldn't want to play with lye with toddlers around. Anyone else should GET A JOB.

What I couldn't believe was the "$4.50 for 20 eggs". That's $2.70/doz. Even with the out-of-sight price of eggs and feed, she could do better at any supermarket.

It's prime dandelion green season..violet, mallow and purslane to come. Time to fire the lawn service and start harvesting.

Around here, name-brand soap goes for about $1 a bar when not on sale. I'd have to work an hour and a half to afford a year's worth of soap.

It makes sense for me to do my own phone wiring, electrical and plumbing because those tradesmen make more than three times as much per-hour than I do. I doubt I could produce soap more cheaply than could a factory, and if I could, it would probably take decades to break even.

Anyway, that's how I look at the economics of it. There's no sense spending an hour doing something that will save me $3 when I could be making nearly ten times that on the job.